Snow melt heating systems prevent the build-up of snow and ice on walkways, patios, roadways and other structures by heating the structures when there is snow and ice accumulation. Such systems often include local snow and ice detectors to detect snow and ice at the scene of the structure. When the detector detects moisture and a temperature that is near or below freezing, the detector switches the snow melt heating system on.
Unfortunately, this type of system cannot anticipate frozen precipitation so the heating system must be over-sized so it can quickly heat-up and overcome any accumulation that has occurred from the time the precipitation was first detected to the time the system gained sufficient heat to melt the snow or ice. This can be problematic, especially for snow melt heating systems that are embedded in concrete. Such systems must be sized sufficiently large to quickly heat the concrete slab to begin melting the snow and ice. This adds additional cost in materials and energy to provide such a quick heat-up. This delay in heat-up leads to unsafe accumulation of snow and ice. In addition, the snow detector must be placed on or near the structure to be heated, which requires additional labor and material to run control wiring out to the structure. Further, the sensors are more susceptible to damage when placed at the scene of the structure due to exposure to the environment or physical damage from a snow plow, for example.